


mundane tales of breathing and walking

by squidgirlfriends



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vietnam, Alternate Universe - War, LOTS OF HALF-ASSED REFERENCES TO ACTUAL WAR TERMS, M/M, Vietnam War, honestly i still have n o idea what to put as tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 23:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12420324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidgirlfriends/pseuds/squidgirlfriends
Summary: “You’re gorgeous,”Hajime’s voice was weak and scratchy, and it hurt everywhere from the knees up to speak, but the words had to be said. The man turned to look back at him, his head moving dangerously slowly. A small smile quirked at the edges of his mouth, and he gave Hajime the most peculiar look. It almost,almost,willed the pain in his chest away.“Andyou’reon anesthetics,” the man’s smile was sweet and pitiful at the same time, and his eyes glittered with something unreadable.





	mundane tales of breathing and walking

**Author's Note:**

> henlo. here i am with your cheesy war love story iwaoi needs. 
> 
> i watched a two-week long documentary of the Vietnam War abt a month ago, and that got my ideas going, but I never got around to writing anything until i started reading _The Things They Carried_ and saw like one sentence that said "cute geisha nurses."
> 
> there's more violent stuff in the beginning than in the end. yeah. the end is all cheese.
> 
> im not sorry :))))))

  Hajime didn’t remember getting shot. He only remembered the adrenaline rushing through his system, the crack of gunshots like drums that shook the ground, the rocks under his feet and every single form of ammunition that filled his pockets. He remembered the sound of his ribs shattering out of place, but not the pain. That particular sound was different from the guns, he remembered; it was like dropping a vase made of thin glass. The shattering sound that seemed so satisfying, yet so consequential.

 He remembered that every breath after that was labored, not painful, but hard. In and out wasn’t enough, and while his fellow soldiers kept running, he fell. The first pain he felt was his nose hitting the ground and what followed was the pain that exploded in his chest, like the napalm— _burning, burning, burning._ It was so powerful that it pulled him out of consciousness, into the dark black void.

 

_“You are not Vietnamese,” the other South Vietnamese soldiers in the squadrant stared him down. “The Americans will not tell the difference, but we can.”_

_Hajime frowned down at his rice._

_“You are Japanese, yes?” A female medic sat down next to him, eyeing him with a smile and sad eyes._

_Hajime nodded, slowly. Many Vietnamese still did not appreciate Japanese, even though the Viet Minh’s attack drove them off ages ago. His father was killed during that time, when he was very young. His mother raised him up to speak Japanese at home and Vietnamese around everyone else. He was raised into a world where people didn’t think very highly of him. He was even younger when they heard of the nuclear bombs the Americans dropped on Japan. Hiroshima, his mother’s home, completely leveled. The rest of his family died in that attack, and they had nobody. Nobody except his mother and his dog._

_His mother, hopefully, was still alive and waiting for him back at their modest little home just outside the city of Saigon._

_“Don’t think wrongly of us, we are not going to harm you in any way, we can imagine that you’ve been through much,” one of the South Vietnamese soldiers sympathized, smoking a cigarette._

_“You bet,” Hajime muttered, eating quietly. “I grew up in Vietnam. I don’t know my homeland any more than you might know.”_

_They all nodded solemnly. The medic piped up again._

_“The way you fight, it is different. You fight like you intend to achieve some sort of prize. You are strong, and able-bodied. You are sincere.”_

_Hajime blushed a little._

_“I know what it’s like now, on the battlefield. It isn’t ideal, I know. I…yeah, I definitely know. But, in a war like this…”_

_He trailed off. The soldiers definitely understood, by the way they nodded their heads. They all ate in silence. Hajime tried not to notice the medic’s gaze that slid back over to him every so often._

 The faint sound of people yelling commands back and forth muddled through Hajime’s consciousness. He felt poking and prodding, and an odd tug at his chest, then again, and again. It didn’t hurt, funnily enough. Nothing hurt. It was like he was floating around, a light string tied to his chest, tugging at him whenever he floated a little too high.

 He remembered being sick as a child like this, halfway between consciousness and sleep. He was only partly aware of the things happening around him. Blissfully unaware. He felt an especially hard tug to his chest, and groaned. The voices momentarily quieted around him, and with a sharp, pinching-feeling to his upper arm, he lost his consciousness once more.

 

 The sun rose slowly that morning. Slowly, slowly, it burned through his eyelids until he could keep them closed no more, and groggily allowed himself to wake. A stiff something-or-other was wound tight around his midsection, which restricted him from performing much movement. A dull ache reverberated through his body, pounding in his head to the beat of his heart.

 A cold cloth was placed to his forehead, and Hajime tried to make a noise at the sudden chill, but a finger was there instead, pressing against his lips.

  _“Shh,”_ a voice whispered, which presumably belonged to the owner of the finger. “Don’t try and talk now. You’ll wake the others.”

 Hajime obeyed. Breathed. Focused on that, just breathing. It was still hard, but not as difficult as before. He could get just enough oxygen so his vision was teetering on the edge of going fuzzy. Something occurred to him.

 The finger-owning someone just spoke in Japanese to him. Where was he? The floating feeling hadn’t quite left him yet, and he seemed to wake up a little more at the gentle lull of the finger-owning someone’s soft humming.

 The song, Hajime definitely recognized. It was Momotaro, the Peach Boy, one of the stories his mother always told him. The song that she sang when cutting peaches into slices for them to eat, on the hottest of Vietnamese summer days. Hajime weakly lifted his arm, over to the Someone’s hand, that rested his next to him on the mattress.

 He slowly turned his head, so as to get a good look at this person who was taking care of him.

 Maybe it was a trick of the sunlight, but what Hajime saw made his eyes widen impossibly large. A man, maybe about his age, in an all-white nurse uniform sat next to him, scribbling things down on a clipboard that rested on his bedside table. The light caught in the man’s hair made it look coppery-gold, a stark contrast to the jet-black tied-up locks of the geisha nurses that strolled around the large room, trays of food and carts of bandage material in tow.

 The soft slope of his nose was smooth and perfect, his large doe eyes glowing a luminous pale brown.

  _“You’re gorgeous,”_ Hajime’s voice was weak and scratchy, and it hurt everywhere from the knees up to speak, but the words had to be said. The man turned to look back at him, his head moving dangerously slowly. A small smile quirked at the edges of his mouth, and he gave Hajime the most peculiar look. It almost, _almost,_ willed the pain in Hajime’s chest away.

 “And _you’re_ on anesthetics,” the man’s smile was sweet and pitiful at the same time, and his eyes glittered with something unreadable. “Don’t strain yourself.” He softly guided Hajime’s head and arm back to its original position. Before Hajime allowed himself to fall back asleep, he remembered what the man’s name read, hastily scrawled on the edge of his uniform.

  _Oikawa Tooru._

He’d remember that. _He would…_

_First joining the South Vietnamese armed forces was difficult, because above all, he couldn’t change the way his face looked. He couldn’t change that fact that he didn’t belong there, but he also couldn’t change the fact that he had nowhere else to go. Many didn’t expect much of him, as he got extremely homesick during the first couple of weeks._

_But he fought on, living off of poor lunchroom slop food, leftover C rations (from the U.S.) and handwritten letters from his mother. He kept working, he didn’t dare let himself stop, lest he fall behind and prove all the higher-ups right._

_Some old, war-hardened soldiers that came back to help train them, had practiced things they’d picked up from the westerners, smoking dope and eating candy and drinking whiskey. The other “cadets” followed their lead, while Hajime frowned upon them from afar._

_It was peer pressure like he’d never felt before, not even in high school._

This was _real,_ not some silly old game, _Hajime thought, vehemently shooting fiery glares in the druggies’ direction. They ignored him, and kept on joking around, like monkeys._

_Hajime did not bother himself with pity when those few were the first ones shot and killed on the battlefield. The battlefield, hard and unforgiving, and absolutely, terrifyingly exhilarating. Hajime had never felt his heart pound quite as much as when he ran in the middle of the fight._

_Abhorring and disgusting and scary, definitely, but it gave him an insane thrill, having so much power, but at the same time having none at all. A gun or two wouldn’t last him days against North Vietnamese. Grenades and landmines, however…_

_When those soldiers died, Hajime realized that war_ was _like a game. A dirty, cheating game full of corruption and sore losers. Hajime intended to win this game, along with his squadrant of bumbling underdogs._

_That was exactly what he thought, those words exactly, when he was shot down._

 

 The next couple of days, Hajime still processed the fact that he landed himself on the time-out bench. He lost the game he thought he’d had in the palm of his hand. It seemed pride had been his folly. As much as he found his heart moving faster than his thoughts on the battlefield, he did not wish to reenter it. South Vietnam, North Vietnam, all of it, was hell. Hell in its purest, most utterly definitive form.

 And yet, here he was, on a fine spring day in Japan. A hospital, specially for soldiers of South Vietnam, _right in Japan_. Finally, he’d gotten to reach the land his mother spoke of so fondly, but definitely not in the best way. The cherry blossoms fluttered and blew in the breeze. Cherry trees were gorgeous, just the way his mother used to describe them.

 Every day, the man Oikawa Tooru came in to check on him. Bring him food, change his bandages. Hajime asked him why he was the only male, among female geisha nurses.

 “Because I wanted to help people, so they sent me here,” his voice was soft and patient, and Hajime knew there was more to it than that but didn’t push any further.

 Every day, Hajime looked up when Oikawa changed the bandages around his chest, and found himself staring every time. Oikawa really was gorgeous. Although it was also because he couldn’t bear to look down and see the messy, ugly stitches that stretched from his chest all the way around to his back.

 Every day, Oikawa learned a little bit more about Hajime.

 “I was wondering before… _Iwa-chan,”_ because he had somehow taken a liking to calling Hajime by that name. It irked Hajime a little, but he let it pass. His mother used to call him _Hajime-chan,_ anyway. “Your name… it’s not… you’re not _from_ Vietnam, are you?”

 Hajime, who was now allowed to move around enough to sit up a little, against many pillows that supported his back, replied: “I was born in Japan, but my father was part of the army. My family and I moved to Vietnam when they invaded, and I’ve lived there ever since.”

 Oikawa hummed. “Interesting.” He smiled cheekily when Hajime frowned at him, confused.

 Hajime’s memory jumped back to the medic, during the short time when their squadrant was camping out. She’d smile like that at him, then quickly look away as if she weren’t looking at him at all. Hajime, back then, found it quite annoying, but now he realized it might’ve meant something more.

 After all, she had folded paper cranes and things of that sort for him, blushing and smiling daintily when he thanked her.

 But when Oikawa smiled like that, it awakened something tickling and soft inside him, fuzzy and warm. Hajime had never felt so out of control. He found himself thinking of odd things when it was dark and he was supposed to be sleeping. Oikawa, close to him, holding him, Oikawa smiling, his face very close to Hajime’s. What Oikawa would react like if Hajime called him “Tooru.” What Tooru would look like without his—

  _No_ , Hajime urged himself to sleep. _This is getting too out of control. I barely even…_

_…barely even know him._

 Hajime scowled at the water-damaged ceiling. A pang of hurt shot through his chest, and it had nothing to do with the fact that his lungs had been ripped open and stitched back up again.

 

 The next month, Hajime was allowed to go outside (as long as he sat in a wheelchair and didn’t overexert himself,) and read and write and doodle, and just enjoy the spring-bordering summer air. It was sweet and warm, like freshly-bloomed flowers. Most days, when he had nothing else to do, Oikawa would stay outside with him. Oikawa would only fuss over Hajime for a few minutes, and then they would just talk. Fall into a familiar banter, a friendship that they’d developed ever since Hajime’d first caught sight of him.

 And one day, Oikawa told.

 “You know, a while ago, when you asked me why I was the only guy nurse here?” Oikawa sat cross-legged on the grass, normal blue jeans under the white of his uniform. His cheek rested against Hajime’s knee, and he picked petals off of a wildflower he’d found nearby.

 Hajime blinked a few times before he registered Oikawa’s question, he had spaced out before, definitely not wondering what it would be like to run his fingers through Tooru’s soft brown hair. Or at least, he thought it was soft. It looked very soft. But of course, Hajime would never know unless he touched it. Or ran his fingers through it. Or tugged it. But maybe the last part was him embellishing.

 “…Kind of,” replied Hajime, who tried to will his voice to sound less breathless.

 “I was an army cadet, like you. I trained. I did all of that.”

 Hajime was silent. He was genuinely surprised now, and listened closely to Oikawa’s every word.

 “But… you know. I maybe got, a little ahead of myself, and practiced a little too much. I… I ended up hurting my knee pretty badly, before I even got to the real battlefield part… yeah. Pretty embarrassing, right? I just… I wanted to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to, y’know? But I didn’t even get past being a cadet. So… so they asked me if I wanted to help out here instead, if I was still interested in joining. I had to take a couple college classes, and I ended up here.

 I didn’t even realize they asked me because I’m… because I’m a pretty boy. Pretty like a girl. And here I was, thinking they wanted me because of my enthusiasm…  I’m… so _lame,”_ Oikawa said this all very fast. He didn’t look at Hajime.

 Hajime felt his eyes widen. Now that he thought about it, he had noticed a slight limp in Oikawa’s gait every so often, as he used to carry Hajime’s food to him. A little wobble here and there, even a wince once in a blue moon.

 He allowed the pad of his thumb to graze over the top of Oikawa’s head. He felt eyelashes flutter against his knee. Oikawa slumped forward slightly, leaning heavier onto Hajime.

 Something stuttered in Hajime’s heartbeat, and he experimentally combed his fingers through Oikawa’s hair. Oikawa leaned in to the touch, almost imperceptibly. Hajime let his fingers run through Oikawa’s _definitely_ -soft hair, mussing up the usually-perfect curls.

 “Oikawa… _Tooru,”_ Hajime felt Tooru shiver against his leg, moving in closer. “I think… I think you’re really, _really_ lame.”

 And then, Tooru laughed, big and bright, and he turned and rested his chin up on Hajime’s knee, smiling beautifully up at him, eyes crinkled at the corners, pale brown irises aglow.

 “Iwa-chan is the _meanest_ to me,” Tooru’s smile only grew brighter as Hajime stuck his tongue out childishly.

 “Only because you deserve it,” Hajime smoothed Tooru’s hair back from his forehead. Tooru closed his eyes and leaned back, letting Hajime play with his hair. Tooru’s hands quickly slid up to take Hajime’s, and with a flick of his head, his hair had returned to normal. Hajime frowned. “How come you always look so damn perfect no matter what I do to you?”

 Tooru gasped softly. “Iwa-chan, you _flatter_ me.” He stood up carefully, guiding Hajime to follow him, his hands warm in Hajime’s own.

 Slowly, carefully, definitely with not as much difficulty as before, Hajime stood up, Tooru standing just a little taller than him. Hajime frowned at this, and Tooru chuckled, moving Hajime’s hand to his waist, placing his own hand on Hajime’s shoulder.

 “What are you—“

 “Dance with me, Hajime,” Tooru smirked, and Hajime rolled his eyes fondly. Tooru leaned in to his ear and whispered: _“You can tell me to stop, if it hurts.”_

 Hajime, through the dizzy hot mess of his thoughts, realized that Tooru was talking about his injuries.

 “O _-okay,”_ he choked out.

 Slowly, as the sun just began to dip closer to the horizon, Hajime and Tooru fell into very soft, careful step. Tooru’s other hand on his shoulder, the faint, ever-present smile on his face were constant warm reminders that _yes, this was real_ , and _yes, Tooru was holding his hand_ and _touching him_ where the bandages didn’t.

 The setting sun painted the changing sky a million different colors, and every single one of them made Oikawa Tooru look angelic.

  _Breathtaking, he was breathtaking,_ seemed to be the only persistent thought in Hajime’s mind.

 No nightmare of any kind could touch him here, not now. Not when this perfect, happy, glowing person was touching him and smiling at him and looking at him like he’d hung the stars. Somehow, Tooru’s head leaned forward to rest on Hajime’s shoulder. He smelled faintly of sweet peaches and nectarines. Hajime buried his face in Tooru’s hair, inhaling, remembering for later, to never forget the smell of the Oikawa Tooru he danced with under the dying sunlight.  

 It was warm and soft, and Hajime’s absolute epitome of everything perfect.

 _I love him,_ Hajime realized with a start. _I really, really love him._

 As if he knew what Hajime was thinking, Tooru squeezed his hand, even though their fingers had probably lost circulation at this point, but neither of them were letting go any time soon. 

 Hajime leaned against Tooru as the sun set behind them, and he helped him back to his bed, back to sleep. Just as Hajime laid his head back onto the pillow, eyes closed, he felt a pair of soft lips press against his own. He gasped a little through his nose. As soon as Tooru leaned back, Hajime chased his lips, leaning forward so they kissed again—again, and again, and again, until Tooru was halfway leaning over Hajime. The room grew darker by the second, and the soft snores of other soldiers were a forgotten background noise as they pressed closer up against each other.

 When Tooru finally pulled back, his eyes were glazed, his lips kissed bright red, his dazed, breathy expression probably mirroring Hajime’s own. He rested his head on Hajime’s stomach, careful not to hurt him.

 Hajime softly moved the pad of his thumb across Tooru’s cheek. And just then, the worst thought decided to plague Hajime’s mind.

 “Tooru, I,” Hajime relished in the soft sound that vibrated in Tooru’s throat, against his stomach. “I… I’ll have to go back soon… I—“

 Tooru’s eyes widened. “But, Hajime— you can’t—?” His expression was helpless, maybe even a little hurt, from what Hajime could see through the dark.

 Hajime slipped his hand into Tooru’s, and laced their fingers together again.

 “I haven’t heard from my mother in years, Tooru, I… I need to go back as soon as I can…” Hajime’s voice was nearly a whisper.

 Tooru slowly nodded his head against Hajime’s stomach, squeezing Hajime’s hand. “You’ll… you’ll write me? You’ll come back and see me?”

 Hajime squeezed back. “Of course,” he felt Tooru’s eyelashes flutter against him. “You know I will, you _know_ I will,” he took a breath. “Promise me something, okay?”

  _“Anything._ What is it?” Tooru’s voice was softer than Hajime had ever heard it before.

 “Promise you’ll show me around Japan? Once I see you again,” Hajime’s voice was a quiet rumble, so very close to sleep.

 Tooru smiled softly. “Of course, love.”

 Tooru stayed right by his side, holding his hand, until he fell asleep.

 He stood up with much effort, brushed himself off, and started to head home. He needed to eat a little. He needed to think. Maybe talk to his sister.

 

 The next month, Hajime was near-fully healed and off to Saigon once more. He kissed Tooru goodbye just by the entrance, in a narrow hallway by a linen closet. The soft, peachy _Tooru_ smell filled his nose, and his hands pressed up against the bare skin of Tooru’s back, under his shirt, pulling them closer than he’d ever been to anybody before. He relished in the soft sounds Tooru made against his lips, his hands squeezing Hajime’s arms.

 Pulling away and leaving was too hard, the rush of cold air against Hajime’s chest making him long for that warmth that engulfed him only moments ago.

 

  The boat ride was nauseating, but there was no way he was going to take a plane. As he returned, the peak of the Vietnamese summer nearly smacked him across the face, the intense muggy heat sucking the moisture from his throat.

 He knocked on the door to his childhood home, nostalgia filling him at the sight of the old wooden sliding door his mother hadn’t bothered to repair or change. When she answered the door, her eyes tired and her face a little sunken, she nearly collapsed when she registered that Hajime was standing right in front of her. She pulled him into a long, warm hug, squeezing her arms around his waist. She sobbed against his neck.

 Hajime buried his face in his mother’s long, black hair, smelling the sweet summer flowers mixed with the aromatic rice she always loved cooking with, finally thinking, _I’m home._

A few weeks later, Hajime received a letter in the mail.

  _Iwa-chan,_

_You wouldn’t beleeeive how boring this place is without your ugly mug to brighten things up!_

_Joking, just joking. Actually, I have something to tell you._

_A couple of months ago, we got an emergency call from a U.S. pilot, who was bringing several injured South Vietnamese soldiers. Of course, I was called to help, since the hospital is low on short-notice staff. I was assigned to some old brute who’d gotten himself shot up in the lungs named “Iwaizumi Hajime,” would you believe it? I didn’t. Who would be so, absolutely dumb, (and brave,) ever, to get himself blown up like that?_

_Well, it took a lot of painkillers, and a lot of stitches, and lots and lots of lost blood, but we patched this insane guy up. He slept for a few days, still under the anesthesia. I watched him every so often, the way his chest rose and fell when he breathed,_ breathed, _could you imagine? Loving so desperately, the fact that someone was breathing peacefully. Yeah, this really, totally selfish guy almost gave me a heart attack many, many times. So annoying._

 _And when he finally wakes up, what does he tell me? That I’m gorgeous. Seriously. Any other words, absolutely anything else, and I would’ve been fine with just hearing this obnoxiously gorgeous guy’s voice, but he had to go and say something so absurd like that. How_ selfish _of him._

_And the whole time? All I was thinking was, “this guy has my heart. He stole it, it’s his. I cannot believe it. This sweet, sweet, beautiful man took my own heart from me.” And every day after that, he proceeded to make me fall, harder and harder until I thought my nose might actually break from hitting the floor so hard. This guy, this insane, crazy guy, that had to go and leave me just as I’d really, truly fallen in love with him, and made me promise him that I’d “show him around when he came back.” Really, I’m hurt._

_(Just kidding, I’m excited. I can’t wait to show him everything, everywhere.)_

_I really, really miss you. I miss you more than I’ve ever missed anyone in my entire life. I want to kiss you. I could kiss you all day, forever, until the end of the world._

_Before you left, you made me promise you something. Now it’s my turn. Hajime… I know you, and I know you’re going to end up back at the front lines. I don’t know when this war is going to end. But you have to promise me something pretty big, but it’s me, so I know you’ll find a way. Stay alive._

_Don’t get yourself blown up like that stupid guy I was telling you about before, because he was pretty dumb._

_Iwa-chan. Promise me, promise me you won’t die. Promise me, promise me, and I’m yours, always, always yours._

_I hate you, (but I love you) so, so much._

_Tooru_

Hajime always kept a letter, sent from Japan, in the front pocket of his uniform. Definitely the most important pocket, by far. Right in front of his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> little known fact: i am, in fact, the biggest history nerd ever. and the biggest iwaoi nerd ever. 
> 
> hmu with that good iwaoi shit on [my tumblr](https://para-k33t.tumblr.com/)


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